Psychiatrist Spearheads Effort to Raise National Awareness of the Impact of Invisible Obesity

(PRWEB) March 3, 2005

Psychiatrist and Author, Dr. Anthony J. Burlay, announces a campaign to change the way Americans view the “invisible” obesity pandemic. With approximately 130 million overweight or obese in the US, he says many see being overweight as normal despite health hazards and associated healthcare costs. His goal is to make Americans aware of the health and economic impacts of obesity and realistic options available for change.

“When you put a sticky reminder on your computer monitor, in a few hours, it vanishes from your awareness. Your brain habituates to seeing it and the initial novelty fades, leaving the previously urgent reminder as part of the visual background,” says Dr. Burlay. “The same thing is happening with the obese and overweight in this country,” he says. Dr. Burlay suggests that overweight and obese people are so common in our visual field and day to day experiences that we no longer consider the problem in the same way. “Essentially, the obesity pandemic has disappeared from our awareness,” he says. So much so, that obesity can seem normal and in some cases acceptable despite several known, and sometimes fatal, health conditions associated with the disease.

“Because of political correctness and tolerance, we don’t have the vocabulary in our culture to talk about obesity,” he says. Dr. Burlay points out that with so many overweight Americans, the overweight person is beginning to feel more accepted by society, and therefore they are less likely to make changes. The problem, Dr. Burlay says, is that the individual should not accept being overweight because of the associated health concerns, regardless of how many they see around them with the same issue.

Studies show that even physicians have grown accustomed to larger patients. Many tend to wait until patients are obese or suffering from significant heath problems before recommending weight loss. “My goal,” says Dr. Burlay, “is to help people realize that even though everyone in their family may be overweight, and even though many, if not most people around them may be overweight, it is not healthy, and therefore should not be acceptable to the individual.”

“There are fun and effective ways to lose weight,” Dr. Burlay says. “Americans need to be fully informed about how their bodies are designed, how they should be eating, and how to make permanent lifestyle changes.” That is the only way, Dr. Burlay says, to curb the country’s growing obesity problem.

About Anthony J. Burlay, M.D.

Anthony J. Burlay, M.D. is the author of “The Foundation Diet: Your Body Was Designed to Eat,” (Zen-Fusion Publishing, $22.95) available at Amazon.com and major booksellers. He attended medical school completed his Psychiatric Residency at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and is Board certified in General and Addictions Psychiatry. He lost, and kept off over 50 pounds following “The Foundation Diet.”

More information is available at http://www.FoundationDiet.com.

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Media: Press Kit, EPK, photos, and review copy information can be found at http://www.foundationdiet.com/media.htm. Dr. Burlay is available for interviews.